Dear Tech industry, stop treating "niche" like it's a dirty word

Dear Tech Companies,

I've noticed a rather disturbing tread in the modern technology ecosystem. This new attitude of discontinuing products and support for anything that's not wildly popular with a hand wave and an explanation of "it was a niche product, used by a handful of users." It happened with Windows Media Center, it happened with damn near everything Google has ever released, including Google Reader. Yes, us weirdos doing weird things with your products may not be legion (although I often suspect the number of users are often downplayed when they announce cancellations) but we're important.

When you release some untested and untried new idea, wobbling on its baby-deer-standing-up-for-the first-time unsteady legs, who do you think are the first people to try it, embrace it, and evangelize it? We ohh filthy early adopters. We pave the way for these products to become polished and easy to use. We provide feedback and most of the time free testing. We are arguably responsible for some of the success of your biggest money-makers.

I realize everyone needs to make a profit, but please try to consider us in the whole technology ecosystem. Throw us a bone. We don't expect experiments that never took off to get months of developer hours and support love. Most of the time, we just want the products and services that we've been using for years to stay working. We'd probably pay to keep half the products around that you burned to the ground.

We may be doing strange, geeky things, but we were your biggest fans and customers first, and geeks built this industry from the ground up.